[thesite] Answer this [LONG] [EVEN LONGER NOW]

isaac isaac at members.evolt.org
Tue Jun 12 00:43:44 CDT 2001


> responses, all accurate, all different.  My point being, this industry
> changes far too fast for there to ever be just one way of doing things.
> That first problem that appears in AnswerThis, I can think of three
> different, unique approaches with ASP to solve the problem (yeah Matt, I
> thought of another one <G>).  I'd like to see all three written up

i will not argue that getting solutions of various types to a single
scenario is good, or that evolt.org needs more content (see admin post
you've already responded to). they're obviously both good things.


but is AnswerThis the best way to article-whore?

could we not post a bi-weekly hypothetical to thelist, and call for articles
from people that way? saves having a strange category on thesite...

articles submitted would not refer to the original thelist email. they might
link to other related articles.


advantages of whoring via thelist:

 - can hint at what articles we need to fill our "holes" (areas that we're
low on content - lots of them basically)

 - can reach an audience of a couple thousand (i doubt that a huge
percentage of them read thesite regularly - see my admin post for info on
that also).

 - if you've got time to post an elaborate post to thelist (and some of them
are great), you have time to write an article (almost).



a couple of things for evolt to do: more openly ask for articles, and in
specific areas. increase number of offlist "this would make a great article"
postings. not say "you can submit something if you want", and instead say
"if there's something you know well, contribute, etc".

also, on every headline mailout, we should have a bit of an article-whoring
spiel in there too. maybe even make it serve the authors further. instead of
just:

Article asdflkajsdlf;kjas;df; author: rudy
[link]

have:

Article a;sldfkja;lkdjlas;df;
[article summary]
[link]
author: rudy
brief line about author, ie: "rudy is an experienced database programmer
currently freelancing from his home-office in Toronto".


provides more info on the article. provides more benefit to the author. that
one-liner could lead to another freelance job for rudy, without making it
seem like a direct sales pitch.


just ideas...





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